• Skip to Content
  • Skip to Main Navigation
  • Skip to Search

Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington IU Bloomington

Open Search
  • About
    • Areas
      • Architecture
      • Ceramics
      • Comprehensive Design
      • Digital Art
      • Fashion Design
      • Fibers
      • Graphic Design
      • Interior Design
      • Merchandising
      • Metalsmithing + Jewelry Design
      • Painting
      • Photography
      • Printmaking
      • Sculpture
    • Facilities
      • Virtual Tour
      • Fabrication Labs
      • FoA Bookshop
      • Museums + Libraries
    • Centers
      • Center for Innovative Merchandising
      • Center for Integrative Photographic Studies
      • ServeDesign Center
    • Accreditation
    • History
    • Careers/Opportunities
      • Part-time Position Descriptions
    • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
      • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan
      • Diversity Report
    • 2025 Strategic Plan
    • Emergency Preparedness
    • Staff Directory
    • Contact
  • Faculty
    • Leadership
    • Faculty Directory
    • Faculty Work
    • Faculty Research
  • Undergraduate
    • Majors
      • Comprehensive Design B.S.
      • Fashion Design B.A.
      • Interior Design B.S.
      • Merchandising B.S.
      • Studio Art B.A.
      • Studio Art B.F.A.
    • Minors
    • Creative Core
    • How to Apply
      • Direct Admission
      • Laptop Requirement
    • Scholarships + Financial Aid
    • Visit/Contact Us
  • Graduate
    • M.Arch (Architecture)
    • M.F.A. in Studio Art
    • M.S. in Apparel Merchandising
    • How to Apply
    • Graduate Student Funding
    • Schedule a Visit
  • Current Students
    • Career Preparation
    • Student Organizations
    • Student Resources
      • Academic Advising
      • Career Advising + Internships
        • Talk to a Career Advisor
      • Student Emergency Relief Fund
        • Eskenazi School Student Emergency Relief Fund Application
      • Applying to the B.F.A. Program
        • Studio Art B.F.A. Application
      • Scholarship Awards
        • Scholarship Application
      • Studio Art Thesis Exhibitions
      • Graduation
      • Eskenazi Ambassadors
    • Overseas Study Programs
  • Exhibitions
    • Grunwald Gallery
      • Exhibitions
      • Archive
        • 2022
        • 2021
        • 2020
        • 2019
        • 2018
        • 2017
        • 2016
        • 2015
        • 2014
        • 2013
        • 2012
      • Online Exhibitions
        • MFA / BFA Thesis Shows
        • Alumni Exhibition
    • Miller M.Arch Gallery
      • Exhibitions
      • Archive
    • Sage Collection
      • Exhibitions + Events
  • News
    • Vision Magazine 2021-22
    • Eskenazi School News
  • Events
    • Speaker Series
      • McKinney Visiting Artist Series
        • Archive
          • 2021–2022
          • 2020–2021
          • 2019–2020
          • 2018–2019
          • 2017–2018
          • 2016–2017
          • 2015–2016
          • 2021–2022
      • Miller M.Arch Lecture Series
        • Archive
          • 2021–2022
          • 2020–2021
          • 2019–2020
      • Design Speaker Series
      • Bill Blass
    • Special Events
  • Alumni + Giving
  • Connect

Eskenazi School
of Art, Architecture + Design

  • Home
  • About
    • Areas
    • Facilities
    • Centers
    • Accreditation
    • History
    • Careers/Opportunities
    • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
    • 2025 Strategic Plan
    • Emergency Preparedness
    • Staff Directory
    • Contact
  • Faculty
    • Leadership
    • Faculty Directory
    • Faculty Work
    • Faculty Research
  • Undergraduate
    • Majors
    • Minors
    • Creative Core
    • How to Apply
    • Scholarships + Financial Aid
    • Visit/Contact Us
  • Graduate
    • M.Arch (Architecture)
    • M.F.A. in Studio Art
    • M.S. in Apparel Merchandising
    • How to Apply
    • Graduate Student Funding
    • Schedule a Visit
  • Current Students
    • Career Preparation
    • Student Organizations
    • Student Resources
    • Overseas Study Programs
  • Exhibitions
    • Grunwald Gallery
    • Miller M.Arch Gallery
    • Sage Collection
  • News
    • Vision Magazine 2021-22
    • Eskenazi School News
  • Events
    • Speaker Series
    • Special Events
  • Search
  • Alumni + Giving
  • Connect
  • Home
  • News
  • 2022
  • Home is where I belong

Home is where I belong

By: Yael Ksander

Thursday, June 23, 2022

A colorful mural painted on the side of a brick building.
Completed in early June, the mural at 307 East Fourth Street in Huntingburg will be dedicated June 24.

A sunny day at the park, kids swinging, families holding hands. Dogs and ice cream cones.

If you ask children in Huntingburg, Ind., these are some of the elements of home. And they’ve been captured in a mural now gracing the south side of the Current Blends building at 307 East Fourth Street. Completed in early June, the mural will be dedicated Friday, June 24 at 6:30 p.m. during Huntingburg's 4th Friday monthly celebration from 5 to 10 p.m. in Market Street Park, adjacent to the mural.

The mural’s playful look belies the many stages and partners involved in producing it. The colorful imagery enlivening the brick wall was born in the afterschool program at Huntingburg Elementary School, when art teacher Emily Meyer asked her students to draw pictures expressing what home meant to them. In fact, that inquiry began even earlier, when elected officials and community stakeholders met with representatives from the IU Center for Rural Engagement (CRE) and the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design to brainstorm ways to celebrate downtown Huntingburg and increase its vibrancy.

First meeting before the pandemic, IU partners engaged with their Huntingburg counterparts to learn about the city’s economy, history, and culture, as well as the challenges it faced. The group recommended that a public art project would bring attention and activity to the city’s historic downtown. As soon as public health conditions allowed, project director, Eskenazi Associate Professor Martha MacLeish took a walking tour of potential sites with Huntingburg Mayor Steve Schwinghamer and the city’s Director of Communication and Community Development Rachel Steckler. They settled on the city-owned building on East Fourth Street, whose stretch of Italianate and Victorian buildings is recognized as a landmark on the National Register of Historic Places.

MacLeish proposed turning to the community’s children for the mural’s imagery. MacLeish worked with Meyer during the 2021-22 school year to collect pictures from Meyer’s third- fourth- and fifth-grade students. Using Adobe Illustrator, MacLeish worked with seven Eskenazi students to scan 26 children’s drawings and then integrate them into one cohesive composition. The resulting picture was translated to large stencils. Maintaining the original gesture of each student’s drawing in subsequent iterations was a priority for MacLeish. “We tried to be true to the liveliness and idiosyncratic aspect of each piece,” MacLeish said. “We wanted each artist’s individual voice to come through.”

In her effort to translate the children’s drawings faithfully to the wall, MacLeish researched traditional and eclectic techniques, discovering that a sign painter’s electropouncer was just the tool for the job. To execute the mural, MacLeish led a team of five current and recently graduated Eskenazi students to Huntingburg, where they spent a week painting the mural on site and getting acquainted with Dubois County.

Eskenazi students Katie Faust (left) and Amanda Duba (right) were on the team that installed the Huntingburg mural.

The students’ presence in Huntingburg complements the community building work of two other recently graduated Eskenazi M.F.A. students who have spent the last six weeks there in the rural artist residency program, another CRE partnership. As part of the center’s mission of reimagining the relationship between universities and rural communities, the six participants in this year’s rural artist residency program have since May 18 lived and practiced their craft in Huntingburg, Paoli, and Salem, where they have also led community workshops, taught public school students, hosted open studio hours, and participated in local exhibitions.

Capping their sojourn, Huntingburg artists-in-residence Nora McGinnis and Elizabeth Elich will add to Friday’s festivities with an exhibition of the work they’ve made during their stay. On view from noon to 6 p.m. at the historic Huntingburg Bank (416 East Fourth Street) their exhibition Surface\\Texture will showcase McGinnis’ embroidery inspired by local flora and Elich’s prints featuring patterns drawn from the town’s decorative iron building facades.

Recent Eskenazi grad Nora McGinnis shares embroidery based on her observation of plant forms in and around Huntingburg during her residency there with mural project director Associate Professor Martha MacLeish.

It will be the second “4th Friday” for Elich and McGinnis, who led art activities for children at the May event and regularly at the farmers market. This Friday will also be a big occasion for the children in Ms. Meyer’s afterschool program, who’ve been invited with their families, to see their work on the big wall. MacLeish hopes for a good turnout, and that one student in particular shows up.  She may be surprised to learn that her response to Ms. Meyer’s initial prompt gave the mural its title: “Home is where I belong.”

Funded and facilitated through CRE, Huntingburg mural project was directed by Associate Professor Martha MacLeish. Eskenazi faculty members Associate Professor Bryan Orthel and Senior Lecturer Jon Racek participated in the community engagement process.

Huntingburg Elementary School Teacher Emily Meyer led the following students in creating drawings for the project: Eliana Abarca, Xavier Ayala, Brooklyn Beard, Kynlei Beard, Landon Blackgrove, Clifton Brown, Willow Heise, Spencer Keefer, Wyatt Keefer, Layton McAllister, Kaelyn Marchino, Ella Cate Menke, Ryker Nalley, Danielle Schaefer, Riley Schaefer, Preston Tenbarge, and Katie Thacker.

The following current students and graduates of the Eskenazi School contributed at different stages of the mural’s execution: Christian Bowden, Amanda Duba, Katie Faust, Emily Faust, Maria Ivancsics, Kate Malinak, Harrison Schmitt, and Kat Spears. Additionally, Schmitt’s family provided hospitality to the Eskenazi group while in Huntingburg.


For more information please contact

Yaël Ksander
Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design
(812) 855-5512
yksander@indiana.edu

  • Vision Magazine 2021-22
  • Eskenazi School News

Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design resources and social media channels

  • Faculty & Staff Intranet
  • COLLEGE OF ARTS + SCIENCES
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

Indiana University

Accessibility | Privacy Notice | Copyright © 2023 The Trustees of Indiana University